Lot 16. Deux appliques en bronze en forme d'oiseaux, Début de la dynastie des Zhou Occidentaux, XIe-Xe siècle avant J.-C. ; Long. 19,8 cm. Estimation: 30,000 — 50,000 €. Lot. Vendu 40,000 €. Photo Sotheby's 2015

ces oiseaux fantasques à la tête pratiquement carrée encadrant un bouton en relief, d'où partent deux cornes, l'un en forme de 'S', l'autre de crochet, le corps réduit à une simple aile se relevant en pointe à l'arrière d'où partent une patte griffue devant, une languette au centre et à l'arrière une queue se terminant en deux virgules, les appliques soulignées de lignes longitudinales soulignant le dessin, deux bélières au revers de chacune, la surface ornée de brillantes incrustrations vertes, brunes et blanchâtres, D.W 2395.1.2 (2).

Exhibited: Bronzes Chinois des Dynasties Tcheou, T'sin & Han, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, May to June 1934, nos. 106 and 107. 

Note: Birds with prominent crests, elongated plumage and long bifurcated tails such as the present pair combine both naturalistic and highly stylized elements giving them a striking visual presence. Moreover, as Wu Hung as argued for the taotie motif, such 'varying images seem to attest to a painstaking effort to create metaphors for an intermediate state between the supernatural and reality', see Wu Hung, Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture, Stanford, 1995, pp. 48-53. 

Bird-shaped vessels and large bird, and more specifially, owl motifs are a prominent feature on late Shang bronzes. In the Western Zhou bird-motifs resembling a cross between a phoenix and an owl begin to replace the taotie motif that had dominated designs on bronze vessels of the Shang period, see Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Vol. IIA, Washington, DC, 1995, pp. 76-83.

In the 1920s and 1930s, scholars working on archaic bronzes of the Shang and Western Zhou periods focused on different motifs, see, for example, Andre Leroi-Gourhon, Bestiaire du Bronze Chinois de Style Tcheou, 1936, figs. 16-26. The pair of David-Weill bird-fittings were extensively published and illustrated suggesting that they were considered important examples of their type. Charles Vignier rated them as 'among the principal pieces reproduced', see Charles Vignier, ' L'Exposition des Bronzes Chinois. Notes Inedites de Charles Vignier', in Revue des Arts Asiatiques: Annales du Musee Guimet, vol. VIII (1934), pp. 129-145. 

Sotheby's. Trésors de la Chine ancienne de la collection David David-Weill, Paris, 16 Dec 2015